cleaning

Last night I did something that I rarely do: I reread a whole chapter of my blog, one day after the next. True, it was a short chapter (from October 30 until November 20), but I wanted to see if I could make sense of this period where Ed sailed and I faced farmette life on my own. I learned a lot in these days -- about the benefits and shortcomings of living here, about the story I need to frame about farmette life in order to make it a sustainable, indeed lovable existence. So I wanted to review it.

I was reminded of how, at the beginning of the chapter, I wanted to purge stuff within the farmhouse. That seems like ancient news, no? Clean up, throw out, wash away. It didn't happen.

In truth, the farmhouse stayed very clean inside. (I'm a neat person. So are my daughters. We cant stand messes.) But the outside -- the farmette landscape -- proved to bring the greatest surprises and challenges. I learned that the animals here have trapped me. Chickens, cats, especially in the coldest days, required me to be here, or at least they made me feel that I could not just walk away (should, for example, the farmette management prove to be too much).

The outdoor lands seemed ominous and threatening under extreme weather conditions. Left to manage the tasks of tending to them in the way that I tend to outdoor stuff in late fall, I felt myself to be overwhelmed.

All this reinforced the belief that the reason I had grown to love this place is that it was part of a story in my mind (and certainly in the blog), where Ed and I expressed our affection for each other through work on the farmette. In other words Ed, and my love for him, is a prerequisite to life here.

 *   *   *

The rain at night washed the landscape, cleaning it of the residue of a tough late Fall.






It's a rushed morning. Schools are closed today (parent teacher conferences) and so the kids are coming here early. I quickly feed the cats, keep the cheepers locked up and hurry to Finca Cafe. This is where I have arranged to pick up Sparrow and Snowdrop.






Both kids are seasoned eat-outers and yet, due to birth order and seasonal imperatives, it struck me that I have rarely (never?) taken Sparrow to a coffee shop. Snowdrop and I would routinely walk the neighborhood of her school and wind up at the cafe by the lesser lake. Sam and I have not had the same adventuring escapades.

Both kids are delightful of course and a good bit of time passes with us just hanging here.






At home again, there are the routines: she imagines, he dances....











And then they both eat lunch...






And he naps and she has a wonderful hour of magna-tile play.





*   *   *

Late in the day, I grocery shop. Ed will be returning late tonight and I just don't know how tomorrow morning will work. And so I want to leave it open.

At home,  I cook up chicken soup. Because, if anyone is hungry today, tomorrow, or the next day, there will be home-made chicken soup.

*   *   *

When I am driving from Finca with the kids this morning, Snowdrop pipes up from the back seat.
Gaga, do you have happiness?
I am not surprised. The little girl often probes these topics, especially during our car rides.
Of course, I answer. I'm so happy to be driving home with my wonderful Snowdrop and Sparrow.
She thinks for a while, then continues -- there's lots of happiness in your life, if you find it. Then she repeats it, as if for emphasis.


 

foggy Wednesday

I wake up to thick mists swirling up the path, around trees, structures, cats, thoughts...






The snow is gone. It's as if the weather horror, yes horror had never happened. Deep freeze? Frozen pipes? Dead cats?  Fever, chills, such lethargy, such deep deep lethargy -- no, not here, right? Not at the beautiful November farmette. Not at this place of wet dirt, squishy fallen leaves, grass, still green -- I made it all up, right?






No, I did not. But honestly, in waking to this typical November day -- slightly wet, slightly dark (but the weather gods promised sunshine for Friday, at the latest!), it seems like I am in a different world.

Breakfast, photographed lovingly because always, always, in this meal there is color. And warmth. And hope for a good day ahead.






The good days becomes even better when the kids make their way here after school.






(Sparrow, on his own, finds the music box, gets it playing and dances...






It's sort of astonishing: this little boy who, a month ago, could not really take solo steps, loves to dance!






You go, little guy!






There was this silly rhyme that we used to write in our friends' autograph books (remember those?) when we were kids -- "good, better, best, never let it rest, until your good is better, and your better best."

We coach our little ones to always do better, do better, do better. Do we coach ourselves too? Or is it that at some point we conclude that we've done our work and this is as good as it gets?

I want to be honest here: I fall into this trap too. I may demand a lot of myself -- to care for the people I love -- but do I really ask myself to change? Improve? Or isn't it true that we all, say after age 59, sit back and say -- hey, I'm doing pretty well! I am older, wiser, I have myself and the world figured out?

There's a danger in growing older: you stagnate in your perceptions of others and of yourself, too. You don't look to improve anymore. "I am who I am!" You think you've learned all major life's lessons.  I said this in my post when I spoke of sailing out to sea: can it transform an older person, or are we pretty much formed by now?

The fog lifts, the last leaves tremble and fall. November, in her old age, shows us that she can still throw us a few surprises.

farmette life, for a while

Oops! I forgot. I forgot to take a breakfast photo. I forgot to care that I did not take a photo. I forgot.

Sometimes we intentionally forget stuff. We need to proceed with life and certain routines stand in the way and so we "forget" them. I "forgot" that there are seeds, wildflower seeds that need to be sown. If we are to create meadows, seeds should be on the ground, not in buckets in the mudroom. I "forgot" that November asks for a last ditch garden clean up. I walk from farmhouse to barn to sheep shed and I conveniently do not look at the flower beds.





Unlike during rushed weeks, I do now have my mornings to rest. I take this assignment seriously. I need to chase the bug out of my system and I know of no other way to do it. In resting, I think. And here's the funny part: I look at the days behind me and the weeks ahead and I think -- I know this script! This is a rerun! Pilfered, dusted off and placed before me as if it were new. Funny how sometimes, life just seems like a bunch of worn out pages strapped together as if new, only they're not new at all.

I had to buy more cat food. Ed and I had purchased a carload of cat food and it seems like we just did this, standing in line at Walmart, eliciting snickers and questions from other customers because the quantity was so large. We've lost some kittens since then and the cat diet is supplemented with plenty of mice and other gross vermin and still, I am out of cat food.

One more random comment: friends come out of the woodwork when they sense you may want a break from cats and cat food and drippy branches that should be cut back but aren't cut back because the sheers are too heavy and I cant lift them high enough. And so I continue to fill my morning with conversation and email and that feels so very good.



In the afternoon, I chase chickens, the goddam chickens that are hard to get into the coop at 1:30 pm, and then, breathless and almost late, I go to pick up Sparrow and Snowdrop.

(he takes his lunch box duties very seriously!)











(very seriously!)






(art, big time!)










And then they go home.


Night. I get a call from Puerto Rico. I am no longer without information. And I know when my gallant sailor is coming home.

farmette life, for a while

Too much coffee, too much herbal tea, too little food. Many conversations, with everyone except the person who feels himself to be needing another world, one without conversation.





That is my morning.

I have stumbled into a state of inertia, because I haven't the information to make any good decisions. So I kill time until some inner wisdom pushes me in one direction or the next.

For those of you who worry (as I surely did), do know that Ed is in Puerto Rico and doing fine. Yes, I'm happy too. I want that guy to stay well!


There is a lot of beauty in the world around me, here, at the farmette...






... though I feel myself to be at the edge of it right now. My lingering lung infection and dark brooding skies are juxtaposed against lingering memories of sweet blossom on trees and in the gardens, of walks across hills filled with butterflies ("you've got to come see them! let's go right now!"). Was that really only a few weeks ago? The butterflies escaped to Mexico, Ed escaped to Puerto Rico, while I'm watching too many cats and too many chickens and the plants shriveled and tumbled under the weight of an early winter.


At least the grandkids are like a burst of goodness, of sweet hugs and innocent dreams...

(Sparrow has a hard time with parting with his lunchbox once he leaves school!)






Snowdrop starts off with a percolating story, but she gives up on it quickly. This has been a pattern for her lately: tell story, give it up, plunk down on the couch and ask for a few chapters of a book.






Sparrow, on the other hand, starts with play and then, toward the end of the evening, asks for book after book after book.






There is almost never a time when either kid is not into art. Recently, Sparrow just wants to draw with a pencil. Snowdrop would prefer markers, but today I insist on her sketching with a pen. (If there are markers, Sparrow goes wild with enthusiasm and inevitably, there will be marker stains everywhere.)






Later in the evening, once the kids leave, I make my way to the sheep shed to feed the cats. I have a cavalier attitude about them right now: they're all grown, they're all strong, they're all messy. Three weeks ago, I cleaned up after them. Unless it's totally gross, I don't do that anymore. I don't wash their bowls. I don't stay and chat them up. I dump food and water into the bowls and leave with a "so long, cats.... you pushed me over the edge this month. I love you, but we're one step from you being on your own."

I walk back to the farmhouse breathing in the beautiful November air and think -- this month wasn't supposed to be like this.

farmette life, for a while

Ed is delayed. He was to come home tonight, but that return trip has been cancelled. We're waiting to hear of a new date.

Am I disappointed? Let's search for a better word: crushed. Like a soda can, fizz and bubbles all gone, last drop shaken out, smashed together into a fragment of what it once was. He is, unfortunately, not in communication range and so I have no clue as to his goals, nor his return. A friend of his reminded me that he has been known to linger on those islands and indeed, some time ago, when everyone was at wits end as to where he was and what he was doing,  he had parked his boat off the coast of Cuba and was making his away across that island. He stayed there for a long time and then, just as suddenly, he reappeared. 

I'd heard those stories many times, but of course, that was about then. That was before me. That was before our common home and our shared life.

I miss him every minute he is away, even as I'm not really allowed to miss him that much. It's not part of our deal. Our agreement is that each does what her or his soul dictates, without the layers of encumbrance and constraint that most younger people necessarily have to impose on each other.

Unfortunately, as Ed well knows, our emotional ranges vary tremendously. He is steady as a rock, with very occasional tilts toward annoyance and, too, the rare tilt toward bliss. My range, on the other hand, is huge. My default is "happy," but one big swipe at me and I tumble. On the other hand, one lovely family moment at the table, or couch moment with Ed and I soar. Like Snowdrop, I frequently say, quite truthfully, that I am very happy.

All this to say that the news yesterday of the delay in his return pushed me down there to the wormy bottom of my emotional range. Daughters insisted I stay with them rather than in a farmhouse that suddenly seems even emptier without the promise of a a soon to be arriving Ed and so I packed my bag and went to the home of my geographically closer girl and her family. Snowdrop was counseled to go gently with Gaga and she did, cheering me up with a spectacular dance to the music of Frozen II.






This morning, I ate breakfast with these two sweet people...











Snowdrop did forget herself and said, excitedly -- it's Sunday! Ahah's coming home!  Everyone hushed her in the way that you do with a child who has stumbled into uncomfortable conversational territory.

And then I came back home. To this suddenly hollow empty space that I love so much insofar as it has an Ed in it and that hasn't much meaning for me now, even as it still holds the comfortable reminders of my (our?) everyday life.

I feed the animals. I clean. I do laundry. I water plants. I cook dinner for the young family.






(for the love of asparagus)






(for the love of dance)





They ask me to return home with them and I am tempted, but I cannot live out of a bag. It makes everything suddenly feel so temporary and wobbly at a time when I desperately want to feel strong and in control.

I'll leave you with song lyrics. I like the Stacey Kent version:

When the sun is high in the afternoon sky
You can always find something to do
But from dusk til dawn as the clock ticks on
Something happens to you

In the wee small hours of the morning
While the whole wide world is fast asleep
You lie awake and think about the boy
And never even think of counting sheep

When your lonely heart has learned its lesson
You'd be his if only he would call
In the wee small hours of the morning
That's the time you miss him most of all.

Perhaps you'd like to listen? Here it is.

farmette life 18

The music uncurls with 
The soft vowels of inlets,
The christening of vessels, 
The titles of portages,
The colours of sea grapes,
The tartness of sea-almonds,
The alphabet of church bells,
The peace of white horses,
The pastures of ports,
The litany of islands,
The rosary of archipelagoes,
Anguilla, Antigua,
Virgin of Guadeloupe,
And stone-white Grenada
Of sunlight and pigeons,
The amen of calm waters,
The amen of calm waters,
The amen of calm waters.
(Derek Walcott)

By midnight, the sailors pulled into a cove of a protected island off the coast of Puerto Rico. (I know this from satellite charts -- they are still out of communication range.) I would guess that this is exactly what Ed would want to do, though he would push for something more remote. "Uninhabited" would be ideal. Turquoise waters, a sandy strip, perhaps a smell of a pine tree. Sleep there, under the stars. Swim out to sea, come back again.

My own Caribbean dream would be different. I would go inland. Taste their foods, smell their flowers, watch the people work, the children play. It would not be Puerto Rico, because the island is too big, too hard to navigate. But nor would it be remote. Derek Walcott's lyrical verse has me grow wistful. But I know, too, that his poem was written many decades ago. Tourism, including, hypothetically, my own, does not always benefit the islands. (One very good story about Walcott can be found in this New Yorker article from 2004.)

Every person deserves to come close to her or his dreams and I wish Ed had chosen to stay a little while longer out on the Caribbean. To sail out to some of those remote islands. To swim out, swim in, settle in on the warm sands and fall asleep.

*   *   *

Here, on the farmette, things are very calm.


 



Breakfast.





We've bounced back to November temperature normals.

The animals are behaving, hanging close to their sleeping quarters.






My energies are slowly coming back, so that weekly grocery shopping, postponed from yesterday, feels doable. Well, sort of odd again because I'm shopping for a week with Ed in it, an Ed who may be trying on new hats. For all I know, he has turned vegan. Or embraced meat. People get very happy with their travel habits and vow, at least initially to keep them alive upon a return.

farmette life 17

Oh, the time will come up
When the winds will stop
And the breeze will cease to be breathin'
Like the stillness in the wind
Before the hurricane begins
The hour that the ship comes in.
(Bob Dylan)

Journeys come to an end. Always. Even if you are a lifelong sailor, each voyage has a beginning and an end.  Your boat must touch shore.

Sometime, in the Caribbean Friday night, Ed's sailboat came into port in Puerto Rico.

Does a sailor feel relief? Or regret? Perhaps a sense of pride?

Ed always claimed that these voyages are life changing. Perhaps he is right, at least with respect to younger sailors, but at our age, there's not much that can affect the course we choose for our lives. True, when I travel, I always learn something new. If the destination is especially challenging, I learn more. But I have traveled all my life -- from rural postwar Poland, to within other poor and prosperous countries, to distant and vast continents. Going forward, no one trip will likely transform me anymore. It's not that I've seen it all, it's that I'm too formed to be transformed.

Ed will be within communication range again and though he will continue to live on the boat for a day or two, the big sail is done. Boat safely delivered to the southern climes. The captain will remain there, his family will join him, but the men who helped sail the catamaran will fly to their respective homes, transformed or not!


It's a very pretty day here, at the farmette.






I don't spend time reveling in its prettiness, but I take note of it, even as I'm still moving slowly. Rushing recovery is never a good idea. I should grocery shop. I don't grocery shop. I should visit my mother. She is 96 today! Neither of us thinks it's a good idea for me to cough my way into her apartment. I should tidy more. I do little of that.

I feed the animals,


 



Eat breakfast...





... and settle in for the rest of the morning on the couch.


In the afternoon, I play with Snowdrop.






When she is here with her brother, she is oftentimes distracted. She ignores most of the games that would have been her mainstay before he began joining us here after school. Today (Fridays she comes to the farmhouse alone), she goes back to that standard repertoire of make-believe play.






And, she thinks it to be a good day for painting.






Me, I'm just glad to be getting my voice back. It's rough to read book chapters when half the words you utter are without sound.

As I drop her at home and visit briefly with Sparrow, I think about how good this week has been for these grandkids. The days grow shorter, the weather stuns you with its cold, grandma hacks away all afternoon-long and yet they have thrived and blossomed. We feel overwhelmed by hurdles, kicks, stumbles. Kids, they just grow.

farmette life 16

The storm hath passed;
I hear the birds rejoice; the hen,
Returned into the road again,
Her cheerful notes repeats. The sky serene
Is, in the west, upon the mountain seen:
The country smiles; bright runs the silver stream.
...
If, by some monstrous growth, miraculous,
Pleasure at times is born of pain,
It is a precious gain!
(Giacomo Leopardi)

This morning, I lifted the brick that kept the coop door shut for the past three days. By 8 a.m., the cheepers were out. True, they merely moved from the coop to a corner of the barn that stays a tad warmer than, say, the open field, but still, I felt that they should benefit even this tiny bit, given my clearing head and my calmer soul. I have it in me to chase them down and lock them up again before the kids come.

It's still not quite November weather out there, but we're moving closer. By tomorrow, we'll be back in positive (above freezing) territory. That's reason enough to be happy!

As I sit down to a very late breakfast...





...I think about the small ways in which being alone here has not been so hard. For a little while, you get to be selfish again.

You want the living room neat and tidy all the time? You can do it! (The farmhouse living room has been the epitome of neatness and tidiness for the past 16 days.) Tired of menu planning every night? Steam up some veggies, bake a potato, but some cheese on it, add a nice slice of smoked salmon and a salad and call it dinner. Oh, I would have occasionally done something similar for us when Ed is here, but this has been my dinner for three days in a row now! With a cup of soup straight out of a container ("super greens creamy soup"). With Ed, I always cook soups from scratch.

And the candle burns and the music plays.

These are small pleasures of course and they do not diminish my longing for Ed to be back again, because this place lacks a heart when he is away, but still, one has to acknowledge that there are, in fact, joys and pleasures for him out there on the boat, and, too, a small trickle of joys and pleasures at the farmhiuse as well.

I can muse about that again because, knock on wood, this morning, for the first time, I wake up fever free.The tumult of this week -- the sickness, the cat drama, the utter cold -- it's moving elsewhere. Here, at the farmette, it's time to imagine pleasure again. Can I interest you in a cup of Blueberry Hibiscus tea, with a splash of elderberry juice, a squeeze of honey and some lemon juice? [A thank you to Snowdrop's teacher who pointed me to the elderberry juice. It's expensive! -- I protested. Well, my grandmother had elderberries growing right in her back yard. Hmmm. Maybe Ed and I should pant elderberry bushes and then the grandkids will some day say -- oh, we picked those in Gaga's yard!]

*   *   *


It's one of those school pickups where neither kid is ready to stop what they're doing: Sparrow is solidly asleep and Snowdrop begs for more time to finish her book project!

It takes us half an hour to leave the school building.






At the farmhouse, Sparrow always notices Stop Sign. Always.






Snowdrop, overjoyed that there is indeed a Little Gray stuffie waiting for her...






Evening visitors...






The kids and I watch the deer, because we happen to be outside at the same time. I'm taking them to Snowdrop's dance class. It's a project, but today, their parents are helping me tremendously by meeting me at class -- to manage Sparrow while I makes sure Snowdrop is ready for class.





Evening. Remarkable in the fact that it is quite unremarkable!

farmette life 15

Some people live in a house on the hill
And wish they were some place else
There's nobody there
When the evening is still
Secrets with no one to tell

Some I have known have a ship where they sleep
With sounds of rocks on the coast
They sail over oceans five fathoms deep
But can't find what they want the most

Even now when I'm alone
I've always known with you
I am home
(Vanessa Carlton)


The farmhouse, painted by us a "Caribbean yellow," stands on top of a hill -- in the country, yet so close to Madison. There's so much to love about this place and I knew this when I finally agreed to move here nearly nine years ago. We have made it our project: to care for the land, to expand flower fields, to encourage pollinators, to support the flora and fauna here. We don't always agree on how this should take place (I would like Ed to get help and cut back more of the trees), but this is trivial. We work together here.

Over the years, however, it became abundantly clear that I haven't the mechanical smarts to make much needed ongoing repairs and I haven't the physical strength to clear fallen timbers, move boulders, and maintain the land on my own. We could, perhaps, hire gardening help, but the mechanicals here would ultimately do me in. And so, if anything happens Ed, I will have to move. The farmhouse, for me, is only good when Ed is part of it. My home is here because he is here.

It should have been no big deal to be alone for two or three weeks. I mean, November gloomy and maybe a little sad, but manageable.  Nothing that a credit card can't solve.

Then came the cold days. And of course, let's put at least some of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the one who is responsible for much of the animal drama here: Stop Sign. In one year, we went from being catless to being flooded with cats. They're all over the place! And winter is coming and I felt sorry for them and so now we have cats in the shed and cats on the porch and cats under cars and cats on the road.

It is truly not the case that Ed should have stayed home. He should have done just what he did -- go help his friend sail a boat south. But my plate was already heaping before he left. Add some problems to is and the apple cart tips and everything falls apart.

So, perhaps we should have put some helpful pieces in place. And, from my own personal standpoint -- sympathetic utterances would have been super helpful. Words, gestures -- they matter!

Let me finish with Vanessa Carlton's last verse:

For me it's a glance and the smile on your face
The touch of your hands
And an honest embrace
For where I lay it's you I keep
This changing world I fall asleep
With you all I know is I'm coming home,
Coming home.


Or, you can just listen to the youtube clip. It's a song that had meaning for me when my daughters first left home and eventually moved back to the Midwest. And now it has this very real new meaning, something that became beautifully evident this month.

Breakfast. With a quilt.






Kittens. Just two.





Kids.

Snowdrop asks -- can we see the dead cat again? 
I buried her, little one.
Why? 
So she'll rest in peace.
She's resting?
Well, sort of. You say that out of respect. 
So, she wont come back?
No, but her memory stays with us. (Snowdrop has no memory of this kitten, so it's an idle point.)
And now we have only two kittens left.
Is one of them Little Gray?
No. Remember? We told you. (Clearly she does not remember.) Little Gray was hit by a car too.
So I wont be able to ever cuddle Little Gray again? Nooooooooooo! (lots of big tears)


And later:
Gaga, could you maybe sew a snugglie of Little Gray? So I can touch her?
Can I just find one on line?
No, can't you sew one? (Not gonna happen...)
I'll look into it. (Amazon to the rescue.)











Evening. I feel that suddenly, everything is swinging upwards. Fever down, lungs clearing, temperatures rising, snow melting. And the sailboat is coming closer to shore. And there's a one way ticket for Ed, who is coming home.